News Round Up: New Swift Windsteed Mount, Battle Chest Sale

We have a preview of a new Blizzard Store mount today, as well as blue posts on bringing back PvP gear for transmog purposes, the Hotfix clarification, and how questing in Pandaria is designed quite differently from Cataclysm.

Blue posters also had some fun with the Sha of Happiness and our friends at WoW Insider have been putting out a series of great class and gear guides, including a Mistweaver 101 guide and a look at Death Knight gear in Mogu'shan Vaults.

Blizzard updated their facebook with a screenshot of a new gorgeous mount, and the tagline "Across the land or in the sky, the Swift Windsteed can soon be your ride." With the Cinder Kitten unveiled on the PTR a few weeks ago, it makes sense that we'd also be getting a Blizzard Store mount soon.

Click the cut to read about old PvP gear returning for Transmog, quest design in Pandaria, and clarifications on the Hotfixes.

Hotfix Clarification

Draztal

There has been some confusion about the recent changes to that we’d like to clear up. Two things have changed with Vengeance lately:

Oct 8 - should now ramp up more quickly. Avoidance will now grant based on the average damage of the avoided NPC auto-attack, instead of just refreshing existing Vengeance. This does not apply to enemy special attacks.

There should be an addition to this: was also reduced by 10% at the time that hotfix was noted. We apologize for that being missed in the patch notes. now accrues at a rate of 1.8% of damage taken, down from 2.0%.

Oct 16 - Fixed an issue with the way that Vengeance is calculated that could cause very large but infrequent spikes of damage to grant much more than the intended amount of .

Based on the hits a tank takes, attempts to predict what 50% of average for that level of incoming damage will be, and bumps the tank straight to that level. However, it previously based that calculation on a 1.5 second attack speed. It now bases the calculation on the enemy’s auto attack speed for auto attacks, and a 60 second interval for special attacks.

Tanks will still get the expected amount of from the damage taken. This change just means that the first hit from a slow-attacking boss will bump straight up to the expected amount.

Season 11 PvP Gear

Daxxarri

When they return, they will be purchasable with Honor Points from the legacy armor and weapons vendors in Area 52.

Mists of Pandaria Factions Reputation Poll

Brennvin

With the expansion closing in on its one-month anniversary, many of you have started working on the new factions in Mists of Pandaria by now. Of the eight main factions currently available, we would like to know which ones you are currently working. This poll is multiple choice, so feel free to pick more than one option. This is also a great opportunity to share in the comments what some of your favorite, or least favorite, factions and daily quests are.

Questing in Pandaria

Zarhym

This is correct. A lot of the quest hubs are kind of modular, in that you can choose the order in which you do them. And instead of giving you a single achievement for completing all the quests in a zone, we have sub-achievements for completing each story arc. Complete all story arcs in a zone and you'll get the achievement.

What this means is you might sometimes complete a more central or climatic story arc in a zone before finishing all the quest hubs in that zone. That still doesn't mean you should ever be left without a "breadcrumb quest" to take you to the next zone. As far as I recall there isn't a single zone that doesn't have some lead-in quest telling you where to go your first time there.

You'll frequently be given "breadcrumb quests" that lead you to different hubs, sometimes across multiple zones. As an example, when you hit Valley of the Four Winds, you're pretty quickly given the option to go to either Kun-Lai Summit or Krasarang Wilds. It's up to you to choose where to go and what to do first in the valley, Krasarang Wilds, or Kun-Lai Summit. If you really want to vary up the scenery and your quest experience, you can even jump around between zones.

That said, as you mentioned there are also some quest hubs that have no "breadcrumb quests" to lead you there. We like the feel of discovering characters out in the world who could use your help, any maybe even unveil some awesome story moments that aren't necessarily integral to the primary story arcs in each zone. They're like little bonuses to give you access to more backstory on Pandaria or the inhabitants and explorers there, and they're also required for the achievements to complete all story arcs in a zone.

To make sure these "isolated" hubs where you aren't expressly sent via a quest aren't totally missed, you'll notice we added new exclamation points on your map to point them out. So while you're questing around a zone, be sure to check your map. Not only will you see where all the flight points are (even ones you haven't discovered yet), you'll see exclamation points at hubs you'll need to find on your own.

Midnight Sunsong Ranch Reset Confusing with Daily Reset

Brennvin

The difference between many of the resets in-game is rather high (and understandably annoying). We're exploring some options to address the issue, but we don't have further details to share just yet.

Leveling Alts

Takralus

This trouble is if there was an option to level quicker, I believe 99% would take it, because even if you enjoy the leveling process (like me), why spend hours doing something when you don't have to? It's a bit like the LFD tool—you don't have to use it and many claim they prefer the old system of manually finding a group, but almost everyone does because it's so much quicker. When your gaming time is precious, anything that saves time often becomes a must.If we put an NPC into the game that gave out free gold, I'm sure that would be universally popular too. But it would pretty much ruin other aspects of the game.

Like my example earlier, if you provide an easier way to do something, most people will take it. But in some cases it diminishes the gameplay experience. With the LFD tool, you simply sign up and the system finds all the team members for you, it even teleports you straight to the dungeon. This is great if you just want to run quick dungeons all night with minimal fuss. But then we had the issue before Mists that many people never left their capital city.

Another thing about making leveling quicker, or making something essential in an MMORPG require less effort if you will, is where do you draw the line? Isn't it just another step towards that instant max level character button?

I think you'll find that Qilin is the basis for Quilen, but I could be wrong as I've only based it on similar appearance (plus they are both seen as statues) and name.Actually he's right and Blizzard is wrong the "quilen" is a shishi or "foo dog"

Comment by Malcov897

on 2012-10-24T20:39:13-05:00

I don't know what to think...I like how they used the talbuk skeleton, but the face looks....derp. I don't know. To each his own. i still may get it though.

Comment by Gorgaan

on 2012-10-24T21:27:22-05:00

About Leveling Alts: "... we had the issue before Mists that many people never left their capital city." reminds me of "Lies, damned lies, and statistics". As I read so many rationales by Blizzard for design choices I wonder maybe they are taking to narrow a view of things. I have had a "main" toon for many years and I go all over with him. He does all the holiday events, questing, exploring and has as high a reputation can be gotten with all factions excluding the grinding of 10,000 10 rep npcs. I also have many alt toons which exist more for specific purposes like banking, auction house use, and, more interestingly, professions. I created a DK just so I could gather higher level herbs without leveling another toon. My alts rarely leave town and when they do it is usually only for a short time -- many never leave town. Some are leveled to higher levels just to do the professions so analysis Blizz might do can't filter them for that either like say for a low level bank alt. Recently I have expanded and leveled a couple of healers almost exclusively through dungeons. I found that I enjoy the role and one of them I am doing more and more with. Reviewing numbers like people never leaving town may have all kinds of reasons (they've done what interests them and dungeons are all that's left) or may not even be an accurate reflection of how a person enjoys the game. I also have two accounts and have bought a number of "extra" items like collector's editions, pets and mounts and committed to paying for a year on one account and prepaid the second for a few months ahead so I am not a casual customer for Blizz - I'm invested. In the past taking all the time to level alts put me off so much I rarely did it much. Now it is much easier and I am leveling at least 6 as time permits. Finding ways for me to explore WoW in ways I have not before (I'd rather use my time to learn to heal or tank well than do 500 quests killing 1000's of mobs all for the 5th or 6th time) or have options with multiple professions seems like a worthy thing and could expand Blizz's market which is completely counter to what I read in this post....

I did the final beta weekend for "Secret World" and in that a single player can explore all "classes" and "professions" by picking training as they have time available - a player does not need alts to explore all aspects of that game.

Comment by RamenChicken

on 2012-10-25T06:36:07-05:00

what kind of creature is that mount? i mean...it looks like a semi-armored horse..with a cloud below it and...some yellow punk-themed hair...and...dafuq...not sure if blizz is trolling us...

I think you'll find that Qilin is the basis for Quilen, but I could be wrong as I've only based it on similar appearance (plus they are both seen as statues) and name.

Actually, the quilen is more based on ShiShi or "foo dogs" Which are guardian lions in Chinese myths. They actually don't look anything like The actual Qilin that their name is similar to, because Qilin are draconian horse creatures. Basing their similarities on the fact that both can be seen as statues really doesn't mean much, seeing as there has never been an incident of a real Qilin, so statues were made to give an idea of what they look like.